


Flint's Weakness

by hbub1201



Series: Learn as they Go [4]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angry Silver, M/M, Rational Billy, Reactionary Flint, Unresolved Argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:52:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5377616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbub1201/pseuds/hbub1201
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silver offers some advice, Flint reacts less than well and Billy shouldn't even be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flint's Weakness

"Where's Billy?" Silver asked as he strolled into the Captains quarters without a care for propriety.

"You seem awfully concerned recently with the whereabouts of Billy." Flint responded dryly without looking up from the charts he was scribbling all over.

"Well," the quartermaster snarked back, "If he does insist on hiding-"

"He's not hiding in here," the Captain interrupted, still not raising his eyes to address his newest crew member properly.

Moments of silence followed as Flint continued to work away and tried to ignore the presence of the other man who was appparently in no hurry to leave. Finally the older man let out a long suffering sigh and raised his head to stare Silver down, raising his eyebrows as he demanded, "What?"

"Seems to be his most frequent hide-out recently." The curly haired man commented almost awkwardly.

Flint groaned as he put down his marking tools and leaned back in his chair. "Is there something you are trying to say here?"

"Look," Silver shot back, darting forward to lean against the chair opposite the Captain, "Far be it from me to tell you how to run your ship..."

"But you're going to do it anyway," Flint sighed in response.

"Well do you really think antagonising Billy is a good idea?"

A startled laugh broke free before Flint could stop himself, of all of the things he'd thought the other man was about to scold him for that was not one of them. A dread had formed that had him believing they had been to obvious, that somehow Silver had worked it out despite their best efforts to conceal whatever was going on between them. "Excuse me?" Flint all but laughed through his relief.

"It's no secret," Silver rushed to eplain, "How much the men love our humble bosun." Flint raised a single eyebrow at the sarcasm inherent in Silvers voice, or was it something else? Annoyance, perhaps? "Do you really think it is to your advantage to have him in here everyday arguing about God knows what just because you enjoy asserting your dominance over him?"

And there it was. The anger bubbled up in Flint so quickly that it shocked even him. That's what they thought Billy was? An object which the Captain could use and abuse to his hearts desire. Could kick down to big himself up. "Again," Flint growled, through gritted teeth, "Excuse me?"

"No, I get it," the quartermaster assured, mistaking the cause of Flint's anger for the thought of other peoples judgement. "It's important to keep the crew in line, especially Billy," Silver remarked reasonably, he saw how Billy had grown in the recent times. Gone from Gates little errand boy to questioning Flint's every move, then to come back and all but take charge of the crew whenever Flint or Silver weren't around. They had a job to do and if they were all going to survive this battle then they couldn't have anyone straying from the path. "Show them who's in charge and all that, but the crew see you arguing with Billy and it will not be you they side with."

"I'm sorry, but when has my priority been to please the crew?" Flint argued back, wondering now if that was just how Silver saw his relationship with Billy or if that was what everyone was saying.

"Since they decide for how much longer you remain Captain," the younger man responded boldly. "Or have we forgotten how easily Dufresne managed to overturn you?"

Flint leaned forward then, resting his elbows on the table in front of him. He scowled at the man in front of him and took a deep breath to dispell some of the anger threatening to burst from him in waves. "You said yourself, the crew follow Billy." At Silver's frsutrated nod Flint scowled again and let his own sarcasm fill his words. "Well Billy follows me."

"Which takes me back to my original point," Silver announced with a victorious swirl of his wrist in Flint's direction, as if finally proving the older man wrong. "Is it really such a good idea to keep picking fights with him?"

Flint looked back down at his desk, at the charts and maps and logs strewn across it, at the things he knew how to read without a doubt. He inhaled deeply and let the certainty of them all wash over him, encircle him completely. Finally he looked back up to the quartermaster and said as calmly as possible, "Do you remember what I told you once? On that beach when you first attempted to call into question Billy's loyalty?"

Silver scrunched his eyes in thought and memory, knowing exactly to when the Captain is referring, the day they beached the ship, but not understanding why it is relevant now. "Umm, I don't see how that's-"

Flint raised his hand to silence the man in front of him. "I told you then what is still true today." The Captain proclaimed, "Billy Bones is a dutiful boatswain who commands enormous respect from his crew as well as myself."

Silver's eyebrows remained pinched so Flint carried on honestly. "I trust him now as much as I did then, if not more."

Flint stared the quartermaster down, letting the importance and the truth of his words sink in before continuing. "You are quartermaster because you proved to these men that you were their brother, you lost your leg in order to protect them and in turn you earned their trust. Billy has been earning that same trust the entirety of his time as a member of this crew. But unlike Billy, your actual loyalty is still in question."

At this Silver threw himself up to stand straight and stare back down at his Captain with wide, angry eyes. "Now wait a-"

But the Captain stood suddenly, with a force that had Silver's protests dying on his tongue. "I believe," he interrupted calmly, "That you sacrificing your leg for the good of the crew was as much of a surprise to you as it was to the rest of us." Flint exhaled as he moved away from the desk in order to pour two glasses of whiskey, he handed one over to a still scowling Silver then returned to his seat.

"I used to understand you," he continued seriously, "Back then you were loyal to me only to the extent of what you could get in return. You helped me in order to help yourself and the rest of them were just a means to an end. Obviously that has all changed now and I can't quite pin down your motives anymore." 

Silver's scowl hadn't lessoned but he did look thoughtful so Flint took this to mean he was in fact taking in what was being said. "Fortunately for both of us it doesn't matter yet what your intentions are as you need me as your Captain just as much as I need you as my quartermaster. One day that may change and we will find ourselves at cross-purposes, but we'll fight that fight when the day comes and today is not that day."

"Well," Silver scoffed, definitely sarcastic this time, "Thank y-"

"As far as I'm concerned," Flint ploughed on, Silver grit his teeth at yet another interruption but shook off the anger and listened regardless, "Billy's loyalty has never been in question. His loyalty is to his crew, his brothers... His family of which I am a necessary part. Billy has not taken to spending whatever time he is not on deck in here just to argue with me. He is in here because I asked him to be. He is in here because I value his opinion and I trust his knowledge and strategy."

"He's in here to help you plan our next move?" Silver scoffed loudly, realisation hitting him hard, indignant in the knowledge that he was left out of these meetings.

"Yes," Flint merely ackowledged honestly, "We are at war, not a time to argue amongst ourselves over petty complaints or ascert dominance unnecessarily," he said scathingly.

"So you and the bosun have been deciding the crews next moves, while the bloody quartermaster was deemed an unnecessary participant in even the discussion?" Anger was shaking him as he clenched his fist in the shirt at his hip.

"In short, yes." The Captain replied unapologetically. "Billy knows this ship like the back of his hand, he could sail it in his sleep. We are all sailers here. We live and breath the wood and rope and ocean. All of us know more about how to live on the sea than we do about who we are off of it, all of us but you. How can you hope to win a nautical war if you don't even know one end of the mast from the other?"

"So because I haven't sailed the seven seas my input is not needed, why the bloody hell did you make me quartermaster then?"

"The crew made you quartermaster, Billy made you quartermaster, and I don't disagree with them. Figure out what you're fighting for Silver, and what you're fighting with, fighting against. Your strategy and cunning are impressive and of course will prove invaluable in this war but we cannot simply trick our way to victory. Learn how to sail, how to navigate this ship. Learn what she truly is, how she breaths, how she can win against bigger and better. Know what the rest of us have lived and breathed for all of these years. When you do that Silver, you will be unstoppable."

"And until then I wait at the side while you and your bosun figure out how next we might all die for your cause?"

"Or you could simply leave?" Flint challenged back.

Silver scowled harder but made no move to leave, he towered over the desk in front of a seated Flint and all but growled out his anger. "Fine," he shouted, reaching across the desk to pick up one of the many books Flint kept stockpiled there. Silver snatched the biggest book he could grab with one hand and turned abruptly to leave the room. "But I warn you," he shouted over his shoulder as he stormed away, "I may learn quicker than you think!"

With that Silver all but threw himself out the door and slammed it loudly behind him.

"Well that went well," Billy remarked, emerging from behind the wall adjoining Flint's office to his sleeping quarters.

"There were no casualties," Flint snarked back.

"Unless you count a man's pride as a casualty." Billy leaned against the wall with his arms crossed in his customary way.

"It's nothing he hadn't already considered," the Captain defended.

"And yet I can't help considering that him hearing it out loud may have been better avoided."

"Really?" Flint scoffed, eyebrows raised in question.

"Well for a start," Billy said back, fighting with himself not to find the humour in the situation, "You could have just told him I was here..."

Flint snorted a laugh, "And that conversation would have gone much better," he remarked. "Yes, Silver," he mocked as he stood from his seat, walking around his desk as he spoke, "Billy is, in fact, once again in my private quarters. In fact we spent a considerable amount of last night and this morning naked and wrapped around each other, so he's just in there," he said, pointing to the room beyond the sighing bosun, "Washing the scent of me off of his skin, then putting his clothes back on."

Billy rolled his eyes as Flint came to a stop a few paces away from him. "Well that conversation certainly would have gone differently," he joked, trying to lift the tension in the room.

"Billy," the Captain sighed this time, suddenly turning very solemn. "You are my weakness," he all but whispered. "I can pretend all I want but we both know that the truth is you are the only weakness I have left and I cannot have men I do not know if I can trust know about you. I will not put you in that kind of danger,"

Billy chewed his bottom lip cautiously, his Captain not looking at him directly in the eye anymore. "You could have just told him I was here to work on what comes next?" He responded calmly, softly even.

"Then the argument would have ended the same." Flint asserted, finally locking eyes with the beautiful man in front of him.

Billy sighed and nodded, he inhaled sharply as he rubbed his hands across his forehead and down his face. "He's going to figure it out eventually," he said carefully, "he's too clever not to."

Flint turned on the spot and scowled, scrathing his eyebrow and pinching his lips together. "I know," he responded, turning back to face Billy but not stepping any closer, like somehow that would seal their fate prematurely. "But by then, I'll know how to protect you," he promised.

A ghost of a smile appeared on the bosun face, "Perhaps it won't be you protecting me."

Flint dared a smile then too, a small fleeting rise of the corners of his lips, before he turned solemn once again. "You could just walk away," he stated matter-of-factly.

"What?" Billy quickly, angrily.

"It would save you a lot of trouble."

"Save me trouble, or you?"

Flint scoffed humourlessly, shaking his head and walking over to the window. "How pleased do you think the crew will be when they find out the man they trusted to have their backs against a Captain they don't much like is actually sharing a bed with him instead?"

"You never struck me as a man who searched for an easier life," Billy chided.

"I'm not," Flint replied, turning back around to face Billy, to show how serious he was, how honest. "And it's too late for me to start now. But it's still an option for you Billy. The crew hate me already, I can handle that, don't much care either way, but they don't have to hate you too. You still have that choice."

"Actually," Billy responded boldly, taking the few short steps over to stand in front of the Captain, tentatively raising his hand to brush the skin of Flint's neck. "There is no choice for me."


End file.
